Tesla Model 3 on John Batchelor radio show

If you sell one share of your Tesla stock, you could buy thirty shares of Ford stock. The only vehicle that Tesla sells are electric vehicles; a segment that makes up less than two percent of the entire Nation’s sales. Ford’s market share is 15.6%. General Motors market share is 16.6%. Statista reports that Tesla is .3% of the National market as of June 2017. (I had to look it up because it’s listed in the “other” file along with Porsche and Land Rover, Mitsubishi and Volvo.

And yet, Tesla is tilting the Earth’s Axis with the introduction of the Tesla Model 3. Most compare the Chevy Bolt electric car $37,495 ($36,620 MSRP + $875 destination fee) with the Tesla Model 3 $36,200 ($35,000 MSRP + $1,200 destination fee with standard battery) or $45,200 ($44,000 MSRP + $1,200 destination fee for long-range battery) before incentives. This comparison couldn’t have come at a better time. It is fantastic free advertising for General Motors who shut down the Orion Township factory responsible for making the Bolt and Chevrolet Sonic because both vehicles were being overproduced.

How has Tesla beaten Ford and General Motors (GM) in market value?

There are certain companies, and people that come along that make people stop and listen. Steve Jobs with Apple was one company, Tesla is Apple, and Elon Musk is Steve Jobs. For some inexplicable reason, when Musk has what some would describe as a hair brained scheme, others say get out of the way and let him do his job. Oh, and here’s some money, Elon, to create those ideas.

Tesla is one of the companies that Musk owns; Space X is another. Naysayers will find what they perceive as a crack in the wall; a slight dip in stock price, a delay in production. Musk sidesteps that perception and pulls out a contract with NASA and Space X, or brings out the Model 3 and gets 350,000 people to put $1,000 down on a car that they won’t see for another year.

Simplicity and Complexity

People scratch their heads; companies spend millions of dollars trying to figure out what Tesla has that they don’t. It is very simple. It is the ability to be in the moment with a simple solution to a multitude of problems that can be solved in a description that takes thirty seconds or less. It is that simple and that complex.

Tesla is not perfect, neither is Chevy

The Tesla product is not perfect. The Chevy Bolt is not perfect. You have a newbie of a company that is the trendsetter for electric vehicles, and a hundred-year-old company that is the competitor. Almost 80,000 electric vehicles were sold in the United States in 2016; nearly half were Teslas. If Tesla sells even half of the 350,000 deposits, they will have doubled their sells from last year, showing there is a magnitude of growth for electric vehicles, something Tesla stock owners are betting on with their money.

If there is a magnitude of growth of electric vehicles that would be good for all electric vehicles because the more electric cars that are on the road, the more familiar people become with them. The more electric vehicles on the road the more people understand the electric vehicle is here to stay and the infrastructure can get funding and grow quicker.

The Environment and car sales

Sales for new cars are decreasing at the same time that the Obama administration’s rules, negotiated with automakers in 2011 have to be renegotiated. The 2011 deal, the doubling of the average fleet-wide fuel efficiency to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 must be finalized by April 2018.

At the same time, Europe and Volvo are setting lofty electrified goals. California and China are tightening legislation and short of seceding from the Nation California will do everything possible to legislate SB32 which mandates 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) on California roads by 2025, and making all new passenger cars sold in California zero-emission by 2050.

Listen to the John Batchelor Radio podcast above for the rest of the story